


Together, Somehow, We Will

by lotherington



Series: Long Ago and Far Away [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Historical, M/M, WWII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-30 23:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotherington/pseuds/lotherington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Bloody hell, can’t you just... can’t you just come back here and solve mysteries and argue with me, for God’s sake?’ John said with a shaky laugh, cradling the back of Sherlock’s head.</i>
</p>
<p>January, 1944. John has a particularly unsuccessful trip to collect his ration, but a certain someone else has a week’s leave and everything gets that little bit brighter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together, Somehow, We Will

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of a two-parter, the second of which I hope to post in the next few days. Enjoy! The title is from [There’s a Land of Begin Again](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEoNdMVD_p0) by Vera Lynn. I can't find our Vera singing it, however, so that links to the lovely Jamie Cullum instead. :)

_January, 1944_

The morning was bitterly cold when John stepped out of 221, coat fastened tightly, string shopping bag in hand. He’d been running out of essentials for some time and wasn’t able to put off buying food any longer. Though it was cold, it thankfully wasn’t icy and as a result John decided to forgo his walking stick, just for the time it took him to re-stock the barren kitchen cupboards. He’d managed walking around the flat for five minutes and coming down the stairs passably well without it, but he tried to be particularly careful as he walked the few streets to the row of shops where he’d registered to collect his rations.

Christmas had been miserable. Sherlock had had to work all throughout December, unable to leave Bletchley even for a day. Mrs Hudson had invited John to her sister’s in Kent, but John had been far too proud to take her up on the offer. Left to his own devices and without even his sister for company, John had drunk far too much and left the house far too little. He’d spent most of the time wondering how it could possibly have been over half a year since he’d been shot.

John reached the shops without incident and joined the queue for the butcher’s, shifting awkwardly, distinctly out of place amongst the long line of women and the odd child, clinging to their mother’s skirt. He attracted a few odd looks and lingering glances but refused to acknowledge them, holding his back straight and his head high. Eventually, he reached the front of the queue and handed his ration book over to the elderly butcher, who gave John a long look up and down. He flicked the pages of John’s ration book apart with a meaty, reddened finger and thumb.

‘You didn’t collect your ration last week,’ the butcher grunted, his bushy white eyebrows pulling closer together.

‘No, I--’

‘Don’t get thinking you can have double this week,’

John glared. Some quiet tutting could be heard from the queue behind him.

‘I’m perfectly aware of that,’ John said, his tone low and icy.

The butcher stared back at John for a moment before slamming a pre-wrapped packet of bacon and another of ham on the counter. John pulled his wallet out of his pocket with his good hand and began to fumble for money as the butcher clipped the coupons out of John’s ration book.

‘Makes you wonder why he’s not in uniform,’ someone said behind John, too loud for a whisper.

‘Conchie, probably,’ another voice said, quickly followed by murmurs and mumbles of agreement and vague disgust.

John turned round, his mouth open to correct the woman. He met her eyes and she stared back, lifting one perfectly-pencilled eyebrow, her arms folded across her chest, her ration book between her fingers. She wore the dull beige overalls of a factory worker, her neat hair and made-up face distinguishing her from the drab uniform.

Shifting his weight, John’s leg twinged painfully and he only just managed to stay upright, gritting his teeth. Cheeks colouring, John shut his mouth and slammed his coins down on the counter, snatched his ration book back off the butcher and grabbed the two wrapped packets of meat, throwing them into his shopping bag before leaving the butcher’s as quickly as he could, limping heavily past the long line of people staring at him.

He kept his head down in the general store, handing over his ration book and money for the soap and the few tinned foodstuffs that were in stock, along with a small sack of potatoes and as much fruit from the stand outside as his ration allowed. Avoiding meeting people’s eyes, John managed to escape this time without anyone passing comment on his not being in uniform.

Throat tight, face tinged red with the memory of the comments and the staring in the butcher’s, John made his way carefully back to 221b, his leg giving him hell the entire way. He arrived back at Baker Street after twenty-five minutes, breathless and just about remaining upright. _Why_ he hadn’t taken his stick...

He pushed his key into the front door of 221, turning it, frowning when he met no resistance from the lock. He pushed the door open. Twisting his right wrist a couple of times to wrap the long handle of the net bag he was carrying around his four fingers, weighed down with tins and fruit, John took a deep breath and tried to get up the stairs as silently as possible. He managed well until the ninth step, when he rested his weight on his bad leg for too long and it gave way underneath him, sending him tumbling down half the staircase. The bag of food fell out of his grip as he banged his hip off the edge of one of the stairs, his hands slapping onto the dusty wood, scraping his side on the carpet runner as his coat and shirt rucked up around his chest. He cried out before landing in a crumpled heap at the bottom, a few already-bruised apples growing rapidly less suitable for eating as they rolled down the stairs after him.

‘John?’ came a worried voice from within the flat.

‘Sherlock,’ John gasped, trying to pick himself up, grunting at the flash of pain in his leg.

‘John?’ 

‘I’m alright,’ John said through gritted teeth, getting to all fours as he heard Sherlock clattering down the stairs. ‘I thought someone had come to burgle us,’ he said with a breathless laugh, using the side of the grandfather clock to pull himself back to his feet.

‘Nothing as exciting as that, I’m afraid, only me,’ Sherlock said, reaching out and gently touching John’s forearm. ‘Where’s your stick?’

‘I forgot it,’ John said, breathing deeply, his eyes closed as he fought to get himself together.

‘You mean you didn’t take it,’ Sherlock replied, his thumb brushing the inside of John’s wrist as he pulled his hand away.

‘See to the food, won’t you?’ John murmured.

Sherlock bent to pick up the tins and packets and fruit that had fallen out of the bag when John had gone down the stairs. 

‘What are you doing back, anyway?’ John asked, taking a deep breath before he gripped the bannister and began to make his way up to the flat.

‘I... I’ve a week’s leave, I was going to stay there, but I...’ Sherlock straightened up and ran after John, holding a steadying hand behind John’s back. 

‘The food, Sherlock, don’t fuss about me,’ John snapped, turning to frown at Sherlock.

Sherlock frowned back and opened his mouth as if to argue but closed it again a few seconds later. He went back down to the hallway to finish gathering the food up and reached the top of the stairs at the same time as John, hovering just behind him.

‘Bugger,’ John gasped, rubbing his leg, clutching the bannister as he fought to catch his breath.

‘I’ll... I’ll take this inside, put the kettle on,’ Sherlock murmured, resting his hand between John’s shoulder blades for a moment before walking into the flat. John followed a few minutes later, sinking gratefully into his chair, resting his head on the back of it as he closed his eyes and let his breath out slowly. 

‘Here,’ Sherlock said ten minutes later, offering John the handle of one of their mugs, his own hand holding the mug by its base and rim. John blinked his eyes open and took the mug with a murmured word of thanks, looking down into it.

‘You...’ Sherlock sat down, balancing a cup and saucer on his knee, his posture even more perfect than usual. ‘You don’t... mind that I’m here, do you, only I had nowhere else--’

‘Don’t be dense, Sherlock,’ John whispered, one side of his mouth pulling up in a smile as he shook his head. 

‘Uh... good,’ Sherlock said, sipping his tea. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead, either, I wasn’t going to come, but--’

‘Why?’ John asked. ‘Why weren’t you going to come?’

Sherlock turned his teacup 180 degrees in its saucer, looking down into his tea. ‘After our last meeting I was rather under the impression that you’d prefer me to stay at BP.’

John pressed his lips together. ‘Not permanently, you silly sod,’ he said, very quietly. ‘Come here.’

Sherlock put his cup and saucer on the floor and went to stand in front of John. He wore a royal blue sleeveless jumper over one of his crisp white shirts. His tie was red, his smart trousers grey and creased down the front, his matching jacket padded with leather at the elbows. His wild hair was slicked back from his face, his features harsher without the curls to soften them.

‘Put your head in my lap, how you like it,’ John said, reaching out to squeeze Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock smiled and squeezed back as he folded to his knees, twisting to sit in between John’s legs, resting his head on John’s inner thigh. John lifted Sherlock’s hand to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss to the ink-stained palm. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mouthed against Sherlock’s warm skin.

In reply, Sherlock kissed John’s leg, cupped John’s jaw, rubbed gently at John’s face with his thumb. ‘How’ve you been?’ Sherlock asked, tilting his neck back to look up at John.

The clock downstairs struck twelve times for midday before John replied, resting his mug on top of Sherlock’s head.

‘Useless.’

John finished his tea and put the mug on a side table. He tangled his fingers in Sherlock’s hair, working the curls loose, pulling them down over Sherlock’s brow. His left hand shook.

‘I want the whole loathsome business to be over,’ Sherlock murmured, his hand stroking slowly up and down where John’s phantom pain was in his leg.

‘Yes,’ John said, using both hands to pull a particularly stubborn lock of hair free from the slicked-back wave of black. ‘Yes, I quite agree.’

***

‘Clean?’ John asked as Sherlock walked into the kitchen in his tartan dressing gown a few hours later, scrubbing his freshly-washed hair with a towel. It was quarter to five and dark already. John had taken something for the pain from his fall and the tonic the doctor had given him for his nerves earlier and was much brighter in himself. He’d seen to the blackout curtains and put the rest of the shopping away and had just started to scratch together some things for afternoon tea, the wireless on for company.

‘Y-yes,’ Sherlock said, a violent shiver running through him. ‘The water from the tap wouldn’t get warm, I bathed in five blasted inches of cold.’

‘I would have brought you in a kettle, you should have shouted down,’ John said, smiling and shaking his head when Sherlock shivered again. ‘Go and put some clothes on and light the fire. I’ll do us some toast.’

Sherlock nodded and disappeared back into the bedroom, returning five minutes later wearing a white shirt and loosely-knotted teal tie underneath a woolen button-up waistcoat, his grey trousers on from earlier. His still-damp hair fell over his forehead, curling around his ears and across his brow.

‘Better?’

‘Yes, much,’ Sherlock said, rubbing his hands together before crouching down next to the grate. He arranged the tinder and kindling before lighting it, watching it burn for a moment and then shovelling some coal on top. ‘Where on earth have you got all this coal from?’

‘I... I just don’t light the fire much,’ John said, putting the kettle on the stove, lighting the gas ring underneath it and shaking the match out to extinguish it. ‘Not much need, with just me here.’

‘Do you not freeze?’ Sherlock walked into the kitchen and scrubbed his hands with the bar of carbolic soap next to the sink. He bent down and breathed the sharp scent of it in, his eyes closing as he smiled.

‘I’ve got blankets, hot water bottles... Sherlock, what are you doing?’

Sherlock huffed a short laugh and straightened up, rinsing his hands. ‘It... it smells like you, that’s all,’ he said quietly, using the ragged teatowel on its hook underneath the sink to dry his hands. He hung it back up and turned to face John, his expression soft and open, a dark lock of hair falling over one eye.

‘I’ve missed you something rotten, Sherlock Holmes,’ John whispered, turning his face away and sniffing. Covering the small distance between them in one large stride, Sherlock shoved his face into John’s neck, bending his knees and pressing himself close. ‘I miss you so much,’ John whispered fiercely, wrapping his arms tight around Sherlock, clutching the back of his neck. ‘I miss you so much.’

Sherlock nodded, breathing in carbolic and tea and warm, familiar skin. 

‘Bloody hell, can’t you just... can’t you just come back here and solve mysteries and argue with me, for God’s sake?’ John said with a shaky laugh, cradling the back of Sherlock’s head. He kissed Sherlock’s temple and stroked the curve of Sherlock’s ear, resting his cheek on the top of Sherlock’s head. ‘I won’t even go on at you about hands in the sink,’ he mumbled.

Smiling, Sherlock pressed a gentle kiss to John’s neck, resting his hand over John’s heart. They stayed in that position for a while, Sherlock bent awkwardly, wrapped around John, holding on tightly. John nuzzled into Sherlock’s hair, leaving kisses amongst the curls.

‘John,’ Sherlock murmured, his mouth warm and wet against John’s throat. ‘John,’ he whispered, his breath ghosting across John’s skin, ‘John. Take me to bed.’

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Useless](https://archiveofourown.org/works/384946) by [dee-light (DraloreShimare)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DraloreShimare/pseuds/dee-light)
  * [I've Missed You Something Rotten, Sherlock Holmes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/384950) by [dee-light (DraloreShimare)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DraloreShimare/pseuds/dee-light)




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